Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

In April 2023, fierce altercations broke out among UK and U.S. TikTokers over (in)authentic Chinese food, aka #ukchinesefood vs #uschinesefood. The contention flared up when an American-Korean TikToker, Soogia, criticized the un-Chineseness portrayed in UK’s Chinese takeaway videos and the British slang ‘eat a Chinese’ as a racist remark. At first glance, this unexpected ‘crusade’ for authentic #Chinesefood ignited by a TikToker of Asian origin can be interpreted as another example of ‘gastronativism,’ or food identity politics, where the food one eats, is used to fortify the border of ethnic/racial/national identities and police who ‘truly’ belongs as opposed to those who are not. However, the very fact that the debate took place among migrant communities in the UK and the U.S. points our attention to migration histories and food’s role in home-making among migrant communities. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s theorization of migrant’s home as a split, or suspension, between the loss of an impossible Home (the idea of total belonging), and never being quite at home, I contend, #Chinesefood simultaneously signifies the absence, or loss, of a Home as psychic borders within which one truly in-habits, and the journey, or struggle, to negotiate one’s migrant identity as an other that is never completely enveloped by the physical locations they inhabit. This paper adds new insights to food studies and migration studies by demonstrating migrants’ food as a ritual that both mourns the loss by creating shared memories and sustains the desire to connect with others through this shared loss.